Ruptured, Reinvented and Re-ruptured Home in Bhisham Sahni's Short Story "Pali" (1989)

Amidst the heightened political tension between India and Pakistan, in this paper,I will focus on children’s experiences in the history of the conflict between thetwo countries through the analysis of Bhisham Sahni’s short story “Pali”. Aselsewhere in any other postcolonial nations, India was also under the threat ofdifferent forms of conflict during the postcolonial, post independent phase,partly due to the poor economic and social conditions that the colonial rule leftus with and partly due to the power struggles within and among the differentregions in the nation, and also due to the co-habitation of various religious,ethnic and linguistic groups. This complex situation of India at the wake of itsindependence in 1947 led to its bifurcation into two separate countries, India andPakistan.My essay explores how children’s experience of conflict can be situated withinthe discourses of nation, borders, inclusion and exclusion during the Partition of1947. What are the complexities in identity, citizenship, rights and marginalisationin children’s predicaments during and after conflicts? How do the changingdynamics and configurations of ‘home’ during conflicts affect children? How, inthe context of conflict, does ‘home’ act as a site of violence and also as a spaceof refuge? How does the existence of concepts like honour and pollution lead tothe systemic violence of children’s lives during the Partition? How does a literarytext represent children’s experiences of violence and help in unveiling anotherversion of the same event that is otherwise invisible? These are some of thequestions that are discussed in my essay through the analysis of Sahni’s “Pali”.